Transcript

2.
Introduction
NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort
Network offer this second annual installment
of the Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark
Report. This report’s objective is to provide
nonprofits with insights and trends
surrounding social networking technology
as part of nonprofit organizations’ marketing,
communications, fundraising, and program
house social network services.
Social networking
community built on
Between February 3 and March 15, 2010,
a nonprofit’s own
1,173 nonprofit professionals responded to
a survey about their organization’s use of
website. Term derived
online social networks.
from direct mail
house lists. Two groups of questions were posed to survey
participants:
commercial 1. Tells us about your use of commercial
social network social networks such as Facebook, Twitter,
An online community LinkedIn, and others.
owned and operated
by a corporation. 2. Tell us about your work building and
Popular examples using social networks on your own
include Facebook and websites, called house social networks.
MySpace. Survey respondents represented small, medium
and large nonprofits and all nonprofit
segments: Arts & Culture, Association,
Education, Environment & Animals, Health &
Healthcare, Human Services, International,
Public & Societal Benefit, Religious and others
(See Appendix A for more details).
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3.
Executive Summary
Commercial Social Networks
Nonprofits continued to increase their use of commercial social
networks over 2009 and early 2010 with Facebook and Twitter
proving to be the preferred networks. LinkedIn and YouTube
held steady, but MySpace lost significant ground.
The following are the key excerpts from this section:
• Facebook is still used by more nonprofits than any other commercial social
network with 86% of nonprofits indicating that they have a presence on this
network. This finding is a 16% increase from 2009, when 74% of
respondents had a Facebook presence.
Facebook, interestingly, experienced a drop in average community size
from 5,391 members in 2009 to 2,440 in 2010. The large number of new
organizations coming on board (16% more in 2010) likely pushed the
average community size downward.
By contrast, long-duration use of Facebook increased with the three longest
duration segments—nonprofits with Facebook communities in place for 1-2
years, 2-3 years and 3+ years—all increasing in 2010 by respectively 46%,
100%, and 250%.
Nonprofit use of Facebook is growing. There are still nonprofits coming on
board, and those previously present are sticking around. All good signs for
Facebook and nonprofits building communities on this booming platform of
more than 400 million members worldwide.
• Twitter grew as a commercial social networking outlet of choice for
nonprofits with a year-over-year increase of 38%, moving from 43% in 2009
to 60% in 2010, as measured by nonprofits who affirmed that their
organization had a presence on this rapidly growing micro-messaging
platform.
Twitter saw its average community size (i.e. number of followers) grow an
astounding 627% from 286 in 2009 to 1,792 followers this year.
This platform still exhibits relatively small community sizes for nonprofits,
but directionally usage of Twitter among nonprofits showed big, upward
movement.
• LinkedIn and YouTube usage remained steady over the last year. YouTube
moved up only very slightly from 46.5% in 2009 to 48.1% in 2010, and
LinkedIn stayed steady at 32.9% in 2009 and 33.1% this year.
• MySpace, the big loser, suffered a 45% drop in popularity. Use dropped
from 26.1% in 2009 to 14.4% in 2010.
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4.
The top users of Facebook among the nonprofit vertical sectors were
as follows:
• International groups were nearly unanimous concerning Facebook with
97% of these organizations indicating that they have a presence.
• Among Environmental and Animal Welfare nonprofits, 91% reported being
on Facebook.
• The Arts and Culture segment followed closely with 89% of these groups
saying they use Facebook.
For LinkedIn, the survey confirmed the commonly held belief among nonprofits
that associations and higher education were particularly committed to this
professional networking platform. 65% of Professional Associations and 45% of
Education institutions confirmed that they have created and manage one or more
groups on LinkedIn.
On the staffing front, one-half of organizations indicate that they will increase
employee staffing related to commercial social networks in the coming 12
months, and one in five will increase funding for external resources such as
consultants, designers and programmers.
In terms of satisfaction with their commercial social networking efforts, groups
that are heavily committed—those nonprofits that commit 2 or more full-time
employees to the management of their commercial communities—experience the
highest level of satisfaction. These heavily committed organizations are more
likely to measure the ROI of their efforts, describe their investment as “very
valuable”, and indicate their biggest barrier to doing even better is more staff, not
training or education (as their less committed peers indicated).
On questions concerning fundraising, commercial social networks
present a varied picture:
• 46% of groups indicate that fundraising is an important role for their
commercial social networking presence, making soliciting donations the
second most popular role behind marketing the organization (indicated by
92% of organizations).
• There was a 104% increase in fundraising departments that “own” the
nonprofit’s commercial social network, an increase from 10% in 2009 to 20%
in 2010. This finding makes fundraising teams the 3rd mostly likely owners
of commercial social networking efforts behind communications teams and
marketing teams, who took the first and second place slots respectively.
• While 40% of organizations confirm that they are getting donations from
Facebook, 78% of these organizations raised $1,000 or less in the last 12
months.
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5.
• Facebook is the only commercial social networking platform used by
nonprofits to raise $10,000 or more over the last 12 months, but just 3.5% of
organizations fell into this successful fundraising category.
Overall, nonprofits continue to commit limited resources in large numbers to
commercial social networks, with the preferred platforms being Facebook and
Twitter for cause-based organizations and LinkedIn being of notable interest for
professional associations and education institutions.
A willingness to wade in and commit substantive resources to newer social
channels without assurance of a clear ROI seems to be differentiating the few
super satisfied groups from the majority of nonprofits who are cautiously tip-
toeing in and getting mostly mediocre results.
House Social Networks
For those organizations building their own social networks, called
House Networks in this report, we saw the following:
• About 22% of nonprofits report operating one or more house networks in
2010. This finding is a 28% drop from 2009 where 31% of organizations
indicated owning at least one house network.
The most likely explanation here is that house social networks require a
greater upfront investment for software and build-out. It would not be
surprising that such a capital-intensive initiative would see a downturn in
a severely depressed economy. Therefore, while still quite active as
measured by overall volumes, it appears that the build-out of house social
has slowed, and we’ll only know if it is a temporary dip related to the
economy or a long-term trend as the market unfolds within the nonprofit
sector over the next several years.
• The average community size of a nonprofit-operated house network in 2010
was 3,520 members, 50% higher than the equivalent Facebook community
size this year.
• Internal staffing for house social networks held steady at nonprofits who
own them. 87% of organizations with at least one house social network in
2010 (87% in 2009) indicated that they allocate ¼ full-time resource or more
to their house networks. The heavily committed organizations—nonprofits
dedicating 2 or more internal resources—comprise 5% of respondents in
2010 (6% in 2009).
• Approximately three quarters of nonprofits value their house networks,
with 74% of organizations in 2010 (77% in 2009) reporting that they are very
or somewhat satisfied with their investment. Just 5% of respondents said
that their house networks were not valuable at all.
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6.
• House social networks are owned by the fundraising department in 33% of
respondents’ organizations (for those groups with a house network). As
with ownership of commercial social networking efforts, this finding makes
fundraising teams the third most likely owners of house social networks
behind the communications and marketing departments.
• Fundraising results grew in 2010. 50% of those groups that collected
donations on their house network raised more than $1,000 in the last 12
months. Once again depicting a mixed landscape, however, 68% of house
network-owning nonprofits are doing no fundraising at all.
The house network side of the nonprofit social networking picture demonstrates a
slow-down in adoption by nonprofits, probably impacted by the down economy.
Community size is up, especially compared to commercial networks, and
satisfaction remains relatively high. Fundraising continues to be a real but small
part of the house network picture, with two-thirds of organizations not doing any
fundraising and—among the remaining one-third—half of the fundraising
organizations generating some revenue, with a small segment generating
substantive revenue.
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7.
Comparison of Commercial
to House Social Networks
TABLE 1: Nonprofit activity on commercial and house social networks
QUESTION COMMERCIAL HOUSE
SOCIAL NETWORKS SOCIAL NETWORKS
Does your organization have one? 90% 22% (1+ communiites)
What is the primary purpose of the Marketing (92%) Marketing (57%)
community?
How much staff time did you 1/4 to 1/2 of a full time 1/4 to 1/2 of a full time
allocate to the community over the employee (67%) employee (57%)
preceding year?
How much budget for external None (59%) None (38%)
resources did you allocate over the $1-$10,000 (33%) $1-$10,000 (42%)
preceding year?
Number of community members? Average: 2,440* Average: 3,520
How long have you had your 1-24 months (87%)* 1-24 months (62%)
community? (Among those with
a community of this type)
How much fundraising revenue Not Fundraising (60%) Not Advertising (68%)
have you raised from your community Fundraising and raised Advertising and received
over the preceding year? (Among $0-$10,000 (39%) $0-$10,000 (22%)
those with a community of this type)
How much revenue from sponsorship, Not Advertising (99%)* Not Advertising (86.5%)
underwriting and advertising have Advertising and received Advertising and received
you received from your community $0-$10,000 (0.7%) $0-$10,000 (10%)
over the preceding year?
For those nonprofits without a Lack of expertise (47%) Lack of expertise (46%)
community of this type, what is the Insufficient budget (32%) Insufficient budget (46%)
primary reason?
* Facebook
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8.
In 2010, the primary differentiator is the size of the nonprofit segment
participating in commercial versus house networks. Among respondents, 90% of
nonprofits have a presence on at least one commercial social network, and just
22% have a house social network.
Presumably, nonprofits find it easier to get started on Facebook with a Group,
Page or Cause than to build their first house network; so more of them do. To get
real value from their networks, however, nonprofits will need to scale and manage
a large community on both types of network. The ease and efficiency of building
and managing a large community is not discernible from this survey, but will be
an important theme in the long term. The potential for building and integrating
both platforms simultaneously looms as a valuable strategy.
The social networking software market—vendors offering software to build house
social networks—is highly fragmented. Custom built platforms were reported by
22% of nonprofit survey respondents who ran house networks, with Ning
following with 12% of respondents saying they use their platform. ThePort has
about 5% of the market.
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9.
Detailed Reporting of Survey Results
Commercial Social Networks
Popularity of Commercial Social Networks
By a large margin, Facebook continues to be the most popular commercial social
network with 86% (74.0% in 2009) of respondents indicating their organization
has a presence there, an increase of 16% year-over-year. In tandem, the use of
Twitter has increased by 38% in the last year, moving from 43.2% in 2009 to 59.7%
in 2010.
Usage of YouTube rose to 48.1%, up slightly from 2009 (46.5%), while LinkedIn
followed at 33.1% (basically unchanged from last year).
While commercial social networks continue to appeal to nonprofits overall, there
is one exception. The past market leader, MySpace, dropped from 26.1% in 2009
to 14.4% (or a drop of 45% year-over-year).
Nonprofits on Commercial Social Networks
90%
80% 85.7%
70%
60%
59.7%
50%
48.1%
40%
30% 33.1%
25.3%
20%
10% 14.4%
0%
FACEBOOK TWITTER YOUTUBE LINKEDIN FLICKR MYSPACE
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10.
Within individual vertical segments, Facebook’s dominance was especially high
for International organizations with 97% of respondents in 2010 indicating a
presence on Facebook, followed by Environment & Animals (91%), Arts & Culture
(89%) and Education (88%).
International organizations were also the heaviest user of Twitter (83.3% of
respondents in 2010), followed by Associations (72.7%) and Environment &
Animals (68.8%).
YouTube was most popular with International (69.4%) and Environment &
Animals (60.4%). Professional Associations (65%) and Educational organizations
(45.7%) were the most likely to use LinkedIn.
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
ASSOCIATIONS HUMAN PUBLIC/ HEALTH/ ENVIRONMENT/ ARTS/ EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS/
SERVICES SOCIETAL HEALTHCARE ANIMALS CULTURE SPIRITUAL
BENEFIT
Facebook Twitter
YouTube LinkedIn
Role of Commercial Social Networks
Looking at how survey respondents use commercial social networks, the most
popular role is for traditional marketing—to promote the nonprofit’s brand,
programs, events or services—with 92.5% of survey respondents indicating this
role as the purpose of their presence on commercial social networks. The second
most popular role is for fundraising (45.9%). Program delivery (34.5%) and
market research (24.3%) via the social network are utilized, but less frequently.
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11.
Role of Commercial Social Networking Community
100%
92.0%
80%
60%
40% 45.8%
34.5%
20% 24.3%
17.7%
0% 9.3%
MARKETING FUNDRAISING PROGRAM MARKET CUSTOMER OTHER
DELIVERY RESEARCH SUPPORT
Staff Time Allocated to Commercial Social Networks
84.9% of survey respondents committed at least one-quarter of a full-time staff
member to maintaining—marketing, managing and cultivating—their commercial
social network presence over the last 12 months, a 5% increase from 2009 (80.8%).
Similarly, roughly two-thirds of survey respondents dedicated one-quarter to one-
half of a full-time resource, and 18.4% committed three-quarters or more staff to
their commercial social networks.
Staff Time Allocated to Commercial Social Networks
5.3%
11.2% 1.9%
15.1%
0
1/4 to 1/2
3/4 to 1
1 1/4 to 2
>2
66.6%
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12.
Looking forward, for the next 12 months, nonprofits indicated that their staffing
around commercial social networks would increase (48.0% of respondents in 2010)
or stay the same (48.3%). Only 3.7% of survey respondents predicted that staff
time on social networking would decrease.
Looking more closely at social networking-related staffing at
nonprofits, we find:
• Among nonprofits who commit 2 or more FTE’s (full-time equivalent
resources) to commercial social networks, roughly one in five (18.2%) are
looking to get a clear measure of the ROI of their social networking
initiatives. While still a minority, it is logical that these organizations who
are committing significant resource are most motivated to understand the
real value of their commitment. This is important, as one of the biggest
barriers to more mainstream adoption of commercial social networks will
be proof of their financial viability and value to mission (i.e. demonstrable
return on the investment along with measurable contribution to their
mission, necessary to build out this newer social networking channel).
• In a related manner, these heavily committed organizations (those with
more than two FTE’s committed to social networking) make up the majority
(52.4%) of those who say their commercial social networking commitment is
“very valuable” (highest value rating). Presumably, even though there is not
yet a clear ROI for commercial social networks among these heavily
committed organizations, they are seeing very real qualitative or soft ROI.
• These heavily committed groups also indicate that their biggest barrier
to a more productive community is a need for additional staff (44.4%).
Compare this to the not yet committed organizations (those with zero
FTE’s committed to commercial social networks) who indicate that their
biggest barrier is training. We interpret this to mean that the heavily
committed have “figured out” how to leverage commercial social networks,
while their peers in the not yet committed group have not, and need
training to help them do so.
• Combining these various responses, we conclude that heavily committed
organizations:
· have developed a good understanding of how to leverage commercial
social networks
· have a strong resource commitment to commercial social networking –
which presumably helped to lead to their deeper understanding and
strongly contributes to their continued ability to get value.
· are getting greater value from their investment than their more lightly
committed peers.
· have made the institutional transition to view social media as a part of
their business, with all the associated value and benefits.
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13.
These observations from survey respondents match our anecdotal evidence at
NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network that success in the social
networking channel requires a real and substantive up-front financial
commitment.
Budget for External Resources for Commercial Social Networks
Nonprofit’s use of external resources for their social networking work, e.g.
consultants, designers, programmers, etc. overall has remained unchanged
since 2009, with 41% of organizations in the 2009 and 2010 surveys indicating
that they used outside resources at some level over the past 12 months.
Nearly one in ten (8.1%) say they set aside $10,000 or more for outside help,
and 1.8% indicate they spent $50,000 or more. Clearly, a small number of
organizations are spending a healthy sum on external assistance, but the
majority are not.
We believe that this is further evidence of the relatively early stage of the social
networking market and an artifact of mainstream nonprofit organizations’
unwillingness to allocate substantive funds until there is a clear ROI for the
social networking channel. Stated a bit differently, the small percentage of early
adopter nonprofits are seeing success and are dedicating big funds to leveraging
this success, but the sector is not yet seeing the expected follow-on mainstream
adoption.
External Resources Allocated to Social Networking
60%
59.0%
50%
40%
30% 32.8%
20%
10%
1.6% 1.0%
4.7% 0.8%
0%
NONE UNDER $10,001 $25,000 $50,001 OVER
$10,000 $25,000 $50,000 $100,000 $100,000
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14.
One in five (21.1% in 2010 and 24.1% in 2009) survey respondents indicated they
will increase funding for external resources dedicated to helping with commercial
social network efforts in the coming 12 months. Meanwhile 71.4% (68.0% 2009) say
they will keep external resourcing budgets the same. Just 7.6% (7.9% 2009) of
survey respondents will decrease their social network external resource budgets
for the coming year.
Enquiring a bit more deeply into nonprofit opinions on this topic, we
find the following:
• Larger organizations say they are more likely to increase spending on social
networking than their smaller peers.
• Larger organizations indicate that Marketing owns their social networking
initiatives, while smaller organizations house their social networking with
the Communications department.
• In larger organizations, IT is playing only a small role in the ownership and
management of this new technology.
These additional observations lead us to conclude several things:
• Larger organizations have larger discretionary spending opportunities
associated with their overall bigger budgets and therefore are better
positioned to allocate more financial resources to the emerging social
networking channel.
• Larger organizations typically have a larger number of more specialized
vertical departments than their smaller peers. The marketing function, a
highly specialized function in the nonprofit sector, likely manifests more so
in larger organizations. Therefore, the social networking initiatives are
landing with this group in larger nonprofits, while smaller organizations
place the social networking initiatives with the more common
communications function. And the marketing team is able to proceed
without significant assistance from the IT team, which suggests that this
new technology is business-friendly even at this early stage.
• Perhaps more importantly and speaking to what is not yet happening, for
large and small nonprofits the social networking initiatives are not housed
with development or advancement (i.e. fundraising-focused departments).
We believe this is further evidence that the fundraising ROI for social
networking has not yet been widely established (with some notable
exceptions, for example in the event fundraising world). Therefore
top/bottom-line focused fundraising teams are steering clear of any
substantive participation for now.
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15.
Community Size: Commercial Social Networks
When asked about the size of their commercial social network communities,
survey respondents indicated an average of 2,440 members on Facebook, a
sizeable drop (55%) from the 5,391 member average Facebook community size
reported in 2009.
At first glance, this drop would seem to indicate that nonprofits are getting fewer
supporters on Facebook and therefore less value. Yet upon further inspection, it
becomes clear that many new nonprofits are coming onto the Facebook platform.
Nonprofits reporting a presence on Facebook increased by 16% in the last year.
Thus, the dip in average Facebook community size is likely more a result of the
many new nonprofits coming onto the platform that are building an audience but
have not had sufficient time to accumulate a large base of support.
Stated simply, an influx of new Facebook-focused nonprofits that have yet to
build a big audience is skewing the average community size downward this year.
In contrast, Twitter showed a large increase in average community size,
increasing 627% to 1,792 (286 in 2009). Community sizes also increased on
LinkedIn from 291 to 450 and on YouTube from 268 to 447. MySpace average
community size, however, dropped from 1,905 in 2009 to 1,794 in 2010.
Average Community Size on Commercial Social Networks
2,500
2,440
2,000
1,500 1,794 1,792
1,334
1,000
500
450 447 122
0
FACEBOOK MYSPACE TWITTER CHANGE.ORG LINKEDIN YOUTUBE FLICKR
Respondents reported community sizes on Facebook ranging from 1 to 250,000
fans, but 96% of the communities were 10,000 members or less with three very
large communities of 214,000+ members skewing the average. Remove these three
outliers, and the average community size on Facebook is 1,773 members.
The nonprofit-specific social network, Change.org had an average community size
of 1,334, a large increase (449%) from last year (243 members in 2009).
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16.
Promoting Commercial Social Networks
Asked about marketing their commercial social networks, the traditional tactics
of promotion on their organizational website and email marketing to the
organization’s email house list were by far the leading methods, with 82.5%
(78.7% in 2009) and 75.7 (71.9% in 2009) of respondents using these tactics
respectively. The next most common tactics were promotion at the organization’s
events 54.1% (43.2% in 2009) and Twitter 52.1% (44.0% in 2009).
Nonprofits included a host of additional but lesser-cited promotion channels
including at least one-quarter of all survey respondents specifying one or more of
the following: offline PR, blogging, Twitter, other social networks, advertising
within the organization’s print publications, and at events – both organizational
and third party.
Promoting Commercial Social Networks
100%
80% 83%
76%
60%
54% 52%
40% 45%
36% 33%
20% 29% 26% 22%
0%
WEBSITE EMAIL ORGANIZATION TWITTER PRINT SOCIAL PR – BLOGGING OTHER DIRECT
PROMOTION MARKETING EVENTS ADVERTISING NETWORKS OFFLINE EVENTS MAIL
Departmental Responsibility for Commercial Social Networks
The Communications department 27.3% (25.7% in 2009) and Marketing
department, 20.3% (22.2% in 2009) are again the most likely teams to take
responsibility for the organization’s commercial social networks. In an important
change from 2009, Fundraising (Development or Advancement) departments
followed closely behind at 20.0% (9.8% 2009)—an increase of 104%—followed by
executive management at 7.9% (9.3%). Other notable responses included mixed
ownership and a single person.
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17.
Department with Primary Responsibility for Commercial Social
Networks
Executive Management 7.9%
Other 10.5%
Development / Fundraising 20.0%
Marketing 20.3%
Communications 27.3%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Further analysis of the departmental ownership topic among survey respondents
indicates:
• Marketing departments tend to measure the success of their social
networking community based on site visitor traffic while the
Communications department is more focused on measuring the number
of community members.
Where the Communications department owns the social networking
initiative, the average community size on Facebook is 3,307 members
compared with 2,281 for a Fundraising-owned community, and an average
community size of 2,440 across all departments.
Presence on Commercial Social Networks
Several trends appear when comparing nonprofits’ presence on
commercial social networks in 2010 to 2009:
• Almost a third of survey respondents have been on Facebook for 12 – 24
months in 2010. In 2009, only 22.6% of nonprofits were on Facebook for this
duration.
• Almost 78% of survey respondents are on Twitter compared to 68.6% in
2009; correspondingly, many more organizations are now reporting a
Twitter presence from 6 - 12 (2010-26.5%, 2009-15.5%) and 12 -24 months
(2010-20%, 2009-4.9%).
• While usage of YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr have increased, almost three-
quarters of survey respondents now report having no presence on MySpace,
which was once more popular than Facebook.
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20.
More insights regarding fundraising and paid placement from survey
respondents, as follows:
• Among the Successful Fundraisers - those organizations raising revenue
from fundraising via Facebook—the average community size is 4,284
members as compared to the overall average of 2,440.
• Organization size does not appear to be a good predictor of fundraising
results on social networks: 40% of Successful Fundraisers have an annual
organizational budget of $1 million or less. Having said that, the bar for
successful fundraising is any amount of fundraising revenue, and most
organizations are raising $1,000 or less.
• The majority of the Successful Fundraisers have ¼ to ½ FTE dedicated to
social networking. 40% of them have no budget for social networking, and
24% have budgets $1,000 or less.
• 24% of Successful Fundraisers have social networking initiatives that are
owned by the Fundraising department (Development/Advancement).
• Human Services organizations make up 26% of the Successful Fundraisers,
the largest individual sector in this group.
Improved Productivity: Commercial Social Networks
When asked how they might become more productive with their commercial
social network efforts, 30.9% (27.3% in 2009) said additional training and
guidance would help. 28.1% (30.2% in 2009) indicated that extra staff would help;
27.9% (32.7% in 2009) responded that more time to dedicate to their community
sites would make their community work more productive. Interestingly, just
13.2% (9.8%) indicated that more money (budget) dedicated to the community
would make a positive difference in productivity.
We interpret this to mean that education is a primary barrier to greater and more
productive adoption of commercial social networks. Presumably, mainstream
adoption will require a clear set of reliable best practices, a cadre of educational
outlets—webinars, courses, conferences—and a network of knowledge
development and transfer groups e.g. external consulting agencies.
Reasons for Not Having a Presence on Commercial Social
Networks
Of those survey respondents with no presence on commercial social networks,
46.6% (44.3% in 2009) cited a lack of expertise, and 31.9% (20.5% in 2009) specified
lack of budget as the reason. Just 12.3% (13.1% in 2009) indicated that they did
not believe that having a presence on commercial social networks was a good
use of resources.
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21.
House Social Networks
Numbers of House Social Networks
House social networks are defined as social networks that nonprofits construct
on their own website—either as part of their main site or on a dedicated website
purpose-built for the social networking community.
Among survey respondents, 22.2% (30.6% in 2009) stated that they have one or
more house social networks. Among organizations with a house social network,
76.4% (76.8% in 2009) have just one community, while 12.9% (14.4% in 2009) report
having two communities, and 10.8% (8.8% in 2009) have three or more community
sites.
Overall, the number of nonprofits with one or more house social networks has
decreased by 27.5% (from 30.6% in 2009 to 22.2% in 2010). While initially quite
surprising, we quickly reminded ourselves that the economy is experiencing a
brutal downturn. With house social networks generally requiring a greater
upfront investment for software and build-out, it is not surprising that just such
a capital-intensive initiative would see a downturn in a severely depressed
economy. Therefore, while still quite active as measured by overall volumes, it
appears that the build-out of house social has slowed. Given that organizations
who already have committed to this technology are seeing value, we believe that
the adoption of house social networks is likely to pick up again as the economy
ramps back up.
Number of House Social Networks
80%
70% 77.8%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
16.9%
10%
2.9%
1.2% 0.8%
0.3%
0%
NONE 1 2 3 4 5 OR
MORE
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22.
Role of House Social Networks
When asked about the role of their house social networks, Marketing was
reported as the largest role for house social networks (56.8% of respondents,
followed closely by program delivery for half (49.1%) of respondents.
By comparison, nonprofits reported a much higher role for marketing with their
commercial social networks initiatives (92% of respondents). Fundraising—which
was reported next most important for commercial social networks—had a much
lower emphasis among house social network owners. Just one in four (27.4%)
indicated raising money is a role for their house social network in 2010.
Role of House Social Network
Marketing 56.8%
Program Delivery 49.1%
Customer Supporg 34.7%
Fundraising 27.4%
Market Research 20.0%
Other 16.5%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Metrics for Success
Counting the number of members and site visitors are still the two chief metrics
used to demonstrate success of house social networks, with 59.8% (68.5% in 2009)
and 59.1% (68.5% in 2009) of respondents reporting using these respective
metrics. This finding suggests that survey respondents are still judging social
networking sites according to communications and marketing centered roles.
The collection of important metrics for judging the success of house social
networks is diversifying, with fundraising dollars leaping up in 2010 as
compared to last year. When asked which metrics they include in their definition
of success for their house social networks, 24.6% of respondents said they were
using fundraising dollars to measure performance, a 53% increase from last year
when only 16.1% said they evaluated their house communities on dollars earned.
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23.
Metrics to Measure Success of House Social Networks
60%
59.8%
59.1%
50%
46.3% 45.6%
40%
35.9%
30%
28.1%
24.6%
20%
10%
7.1%
0%
REGISTERED SITE USER CUSTOMER NEW CONVERSIONS FUNDRAISING OTHER
MEMBERS VISITORS CONTENT FEEDBACK SUPPORTERS REVENUE
Measuring Return on Investment
Half of respondents (51.3%) are only measuring soft benefits, such as increased
awareness, improved supporter education, greater advocacy, better volunteer/
member recruitment, event participation and improved supporter affinity. Four
in ten respondents (42.2%) are not measuring ROI at all. Only 6.5% of
respondents are evaluating social networking effectiveness by measuring
revenue.
Value of House Social Networks
The majority of organizations with house social networks indicate satisfaction
with their investment. Similar to 2009, about three-quarters (74%, 77.0% in 2009)
of survey respondents with a house social network indicated that their house
social network has value (responses that were “very valuable” or “somewhat
valuable”). Only 4.8% (4.8% in 2009) indicated that their house social network is
“not valuable at all.”
Staff Time Allocated to Commercial Social Networks
Continuing the parallel with 2009, nearly nine out of 10 respondents (86.4%, 87%
in 2009) dedicated one-quarter or more full-time staff resources to their house
social network over the last 12 months. Well over half (57%, 51.5% in 2009)
allotted one-quarter to one-half of a staff person, 15.8% (19.0% in 2009)
committed three-quarters to one full-time resources, and 5.4% (6.1% in 2009)
allocated two or more full-time resources.
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24.
Staff Allocated to Working on House Social Networks
15.8% 8.2%
5.4%
13.6%
0
1/4 to 1/2
3/4 to 1
1 1/4 to 2
>2
57%
One-third (33.3%) of survey respondents with a house social network plan to
increase the staff time dedicated to their house social network over the coming
year, a drop from last year’s 46.6%.
Budget for External Resources for House Social Networks
Budgets for external resourcing for house social networks continue to be
relatively small. 37.9% of survey respondents had no budget (34.0% in 2009), with
42.3% (40.7% in 2009) specifying budgets of $10,000 or less. 2.2% of survey
respondents (2.5% in 2009) allocated $100,000 or more over the last 12 months for
house social networks.
22.4% (27.0% in 2009) of respondents indicated that external resourcing budgets
will increase, with the majority (61.6%, 56.6% in 2009) replying that their external
budgets will stay the same in the coming 12 months.
House Community Size
Asked about the size of their house communities, 83.2% (74.4% in 2009) of survey
respondents specify 2,500 or fewer registered members, 9.8% (12.2% in 2009) have
2,501 to 10,000 members, and 7% (13.5% in 2009) have more than 10,000 members.
The average community size for house social networks was 3,520. By comparison,
house social network communities are almost 50% larger than the Facebook
communities on average.
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25.
Number of Members on House Social Networks
10% 7.2%
4.3%
5.3%
0-500
500-1,000
1,001-1,500
10% 1,501-2,000
2,501-10,000
>10,000
63.2%
Marketing House Communities
Nonprofit survey respondents continue to most often use traditional channels to
promote their house social networks to prospective community members, with
more than three-quarters (76.7%, 72.1% in 2009) using email marketing to their
internal email house list and a similar number (75.1%, 74.7% in 2009) promoting
their networks via their website. In addition, 50.2% (61.7% in 2009) use promotion
at organizational events to publicize their house networks.
Social media channels still are used less often by survey respondents to promote
their house social networks with 40.8% (40.9% in 2009) of respondents using this
strategy. The most popular method is Twitter, used by 34.7% (35.7% in 2009) of
respondents. Blogging is the next most popular at 24.9% (38.3% in 2009).
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26.
Departmental Ownership
As in 2009, the Communications departments are most likely to manage their
organizations’ house social networks. This is the case in 23.6% of respondents’
organizations, followed by the Marketing and Fundraising (Development or
Advancement) departments with 13.9% each.
Department Managing House Social Networks
Communications 23.6%
Development / Fundraising 13.9%
Marketing 13.9%
Programs 12.7%
IT 10.0%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Community Duration
The 2010 respondents’ descriptions of their house social network community
duration—the elapsed time since the nonprofits’ house social networks were
started to the present —indicates many recent launches combined with a fair
number of legacy communities—communities launched two or more years ago
and still thriving.
Of the survey respondents with house social networks, 23.6% (41.4% in 2009)
indicate that they have launched their house networks one to six months ago,
44.5% (31.2% in 2009) launched their sites six months to two years ago, and 31.8%
(27.4% in 2009) have had house social networks in place for more than two years.
Community Duration of House Social Networks
25%
20% 23.6%
20.9% 20.2%
15%
14.7%
10% 11.6%
8.9%
5%
0%
1–3 3–6 6 – 12 12 – 24 2–3 MORE
MONTHS MONTHS MONTHS MONTHS YEARS THAN
3 YEARS
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27.
Revenue Generation from House Social Networks
Revenue raised on house social networking sites increased in 2010 compared to
2009. A minority of survey respondents is generating substantive amounts of
donation revenue and the number of nonprofits benefitting from any amount of
fundraising dollars from their community sites increased 28% from 25.3% in 2009
to 32.5% (2010). Of those that are fundraising, however, 44.6% raised $1,000 or
less.
Revenue Generation from House Social Networks
2%
7.5% 1.6%
7.1%
Not Fundraising
$0-$1,000
14.5% $1,001-$10,000
$10,001-$50,000
$50,001-$100,000
More than $100,000
67.5%
Fundraising Results on House Social Networks
50%
40% 44.6%
30%
20% 21.7% 22.9%
10%
6.0% 4.8%
0%
$0 – $1,001 – $10,001 – $50,001 – MORE THAN
$1,000 $10,000 $50,000 $100,000 $100,000
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28.
Paid placement—advertising, underwriting and sponsorship—declined very
slightly from 14.8% in 2009 to 13.5% in 2010 of nonprofit reporting revenue raised
in this manner on their house social networks. 6.9% (5.8% in 2009) of those
surveyed indicate they brought in $1,000 or less over the last 12 months. The
other 9% spanned the range of $1,000 to more than $100,000 in paid placement
over the preceding year.
Improved Productivity: House Social Networks
When asked how they would make their house social network initiatives more
productive, survey respondents largely agreed with the results from 2009,
indicating additional staff, 30.4% (32.7% in 2009); training, 27.2% (22.6% in 2009)
and more time in their work day, 23.3% (24.5% in 2009) would be most helpful.
More money or budget was fourth with 19.1% (20.1% in 2009) of survey
respondents selecting this as a way to improve the productivity of their house
community.
Social Network Software Platform
For now, the nonprofit house social network software industry is highly
fragmented, with no one vendor being used by even a quarter of survey
respondents. In a crowded market, Ning and Drupal both lead with 12.3% of
survey respondents claiming these as their “white label social networking”
software platform each, while 22.5% of survey respondents reported using custom
applications built from scratch, and nearly 1 in 10 respondents have partnered
with ThePort for their social networking software needs.
House Social Network Software Platform
50%
48.5%
40%
30%
20% 22.5%
10% 12.3% 12.3%
8.4%
0%
OTHER CUSTOM DRUPAL NING THE PORT
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29.
Some other products reported include: Blackbaud’s Net Community, Convio,
Harris Connect, iModules, Joomla, SharePoint, WordPress and YourMembership.
In related results, a plurality of respondents (41.3%) is not currently integrating
their house social networks with other software such as their content
management systems. For those that are, there was a wide variety of products
reportedly being used for this need, including: Convio, Open Source offerings such
as Drupal and Joomla, and Blackbaud’s NetCommunity and Sphere platforms.
Four out of ten organizations (40.7%) report having no budget for their house
social network software; 44.7% have an annual budget of $10,000 or less. Only
14.6% had an annual budget of $10,000 or more last year.
Reasons for Not Building a House Social Network
For those survey respondents that have not built a house social network, the
situation is still very much the same as in 2009. 2010 responses mostly parallel
last year’s findings: no budget, 46.0% (47.0% in 2009); no expertise, 45.6% (42.6%
in 2009); and not valuable to build a house community site, 29.3% (32.8% in 2009).
The only response that saw significant deviation from last year in this category
with more respondents in 2010 than last year said they didn’t know it was
possible to build their own social networking site, 25.6% (17.7% in 2009). Note
that respondents were allowed to choose multiple answers for this question.
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32.
Appendix B – Survey
Methodology
A 50-question online survey was fielded from February 3, 2010 to March 15, 2010,
drawing a sample size of 1173 respondents and producing a margin of error of
plus or minus 2.86% with 95% confidence.
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33.
About
NTEN
NTEN is the membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put
technology to use for their causes. NTEN helps you do your job better, so you can
make the world a better place.
We believe that technology allows nonprofits to work with greater social impact.
We enable our members to strategically use technology to make the world a
better, just, and equitable place.
NTEN facilitates the exchange of knowledge and information within our
community. We connect our members to each other, provide professional
development opportunities, educate our constituency on issues of technology use
in nonprofits, and spearhead groundbreaking research, advocacy, and education
on technology issues affecting our entire community.
Common Knowledge
Common Knowledge, an interactive agency founded in 2002, provides nonprofits
with comprehensive services to leverage the Internet for online fundraising,
advocacy, social media, marketing, and communications.
Broadly, Common Knowledge offers assistance to our clients in four service areas:
• Online Strategy and Planning
• Website Design and Development
• Social Media and House (Private) Social Networks
• Online Fundraising (e.g. donor acquisition/retention, catalogs,
email marketing)
Some of our current clients include: Arthritis Foundation, ASPCA, Big Brothers
Big Sisters of America, Canadian Cancer Society, Disabled Americans Veterans,
International Fund for Animal Welfare, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,
Operation Smile, PETA, Sierra Club, UC San Francisco, and VolunteerMatch.
ThePort Network
ThePort Network develops social networking and media products for
organizations that require exceptional care for their constituent bases. We
specialize in applying our flagship product named ThePort Social to an
organization’s current programs and product offerings to amplify their value.
Our solutions result in greater constituent interactivity, engagement, and
organizational innovation.
www.nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com 32